Our Little Levi (at 16.5 months)

Levi has been growing up alot lately.  It's hard to believe he's only 16.5 months and not at least 18 months.  He's such a bundle of energy and joy (unless he's teething, but that's another story).  He adds laughter to our days and sleeplessness to our nights.  He.is.lovely.

Levi at 16.5 months is...talkative.  He's starting to say actual words and works very hard to get those words to sound right.  In his vocabulary so far are: Mama, Daddy, more (mmmmmore?), snack (nnnnak?), wow (more like WOOOOW), night-night (na-na?).  He also tries to say things like: downstairs (his favourite place to play), and Lennox (our puppy).  But sometimes he just can't get across everything he's trying to say as quickly as he'd like so he just babbles on and on using whatever sound is intriguing him that day: didi!, giggle/wiggle, dub-a-dub-a-dub.  It's been fun to hear him trying to put words to life but even more exciting is the fact that he's starting to realize that making an effort at communication is to his benefit.  He very clearly lets us know when he wants to come out of his high chair by waving his arms in the air and will often steer us to whatever it is that he wants/needs with pointing or leading us by the hand (this often results in us standing in front of the pantry where his snacks are kept and Levi reaching for the doorknob).

Speaking of snacks, Levi isn't the greatest eater but he's not the worst either.  He far prefers snack-type food to "real" food.  He'd eat Gerber Graduates fruit snacks ALL day.  He also loves the Gerber puffs.  And marshmallows, cheerios, Life cereal, puffed wheat, goldfish, chocolate chips and graham crackers.  Oddly, he will not eat Teddy Grahams.  He does have a fairly healthy selection of foods that pass for real meal foods including peas, corn, scrambled eggs, fish sticks, oranges, apple slices, bananas, and pizza to name a few.

Levi thrives on routine.  Every morning before his nap, we go for a walk with Lennox to get the mail and often stop by the library, Credit Union, and/or grocery store before heading home.  People around town definitely know us!  We walk everywhere with a red and yellow bike trailer/stroller (or red wagon) and Lennox.  We stand out a little bit in this small town.  But I love it!  I love seeing the women who work at the post office getting to know Levi and the ladies at the bank and the grocery store commenting on how big he's getting.  This is a huge reason why I hoped that we'd find a job in a small town!  After our walk it's snack time then nap time.  As a small baby, Levi was a short napper.  I remember clearly when 45 minutes felt like a long nap for him.  But now that he's down to one nap a day, it's usually close to 2 hours.  He isn't the greatest sleeper but he's finally (in the past two weeks) stopped crying himself to sleep every single time we put him to bed.  Let me tell you, this is a huge relief for my nerves!  I would be wound tight as a ??? (what do you wind tight?) whatever.  I would just be tense as Levi would scream in his crib at both naptime and bedtime for up to 30 minutes before falling asleep.  I hated hearing him cry and scream and yet trying to console him only made it worse.  He just simply did not want to sleep, and yet he needed to!  It seems we are finally past the worst of that battle, praise the Lord!  He sleeps around 12 hours a night, 8pm-8am which is a decent stretch.  He doesn't regularly make it through the night without waking, though, but hey.  What can you do?  Eventually he will sleep through the night more regularly than he's up but for now I'll continue to go in, offer him a drink, give him Tylenol if he's teething, recite a few of his books to him from memory until he calms down, put his blankets back into his bed, wrap him up and hopefully go back to sleep until morning.  We tried the sleep training thing (cry it out) when he was 7 months old and it did help, but I just don't think it's worth the fight for us to try again right now.  After sleep training, Levi hated his crib and we're actually at a point again where he enjoys his bedroom and his bed so I think I'll take this and pray for restful nights again soon.

What else is Levi doing?  He's running, jumping, dancing, climbing...active all the time!  He loves to "fall" off things into our arms, though sometimes it results in a face-plant off the living room chairs when we're not ready for him or when he gets too excited and throws himself off the edge randomly.  Levi likes to play with his Chuck the Truck toys, his Little People Barn, and his mega blocks right now.  He also loves books; he always has (hence me having a few of them memorized to be able to recite them in the wee hours of the morning).  Levi loves to stand on a stool or chair at the counter and play with whatever is within reach.  Fortunately for me, he hasn't figured out how to get down yet so it comes in handy when I'm cooking and need him contained for a while. : )  Levi loves babies and always makes a bee-line to the nearest baby carrier when we're at church - and believe me, there is quite the selection to choose from these days in church!  He's not quite sure what to do once he sees the baby, especially if its crying, but he sure likes to look and see what/who he'll find inside!  He also LOVES Winnie the Pooh and often watches a bit during his night snack on Youtube.  When it gets close to 7pm, Levi will go to the laptop and try to open it and make his "I want some!" noise where he moves his tongue in his mouth and kinda hums so it makes a really funny noise.  Strange kid... :D

Levi loves to play outside and often after our morning walk, I'll leave him all dressed and let him go out on the deck and just play.  He hates getting his jacket/boots on so if he's dressed already, I may as well make use of it!  He always begs to go outside so why not just let him outside when he's already good to go??  He doesn't know the difference.  It's also handy that it's a covered/screened/carpeted deck so I can just leave the door to the house open on warm days and he can just go in and out as he pleases.  I can't WAIT for summer when he can play out there all the time!  He is going to love it, I'm sure!

Levi is small for his age, coming in at just over 30" tall and around 21 lbs.  It sure makes carrying him around alot easier.  He's a typical first-born and loves to be picked up and carried.  I get WAY too many comments when we're out about how he's almost as big as me and how I won't be able to carry him for much longer (though I have muscles in my left arm like you wouldn't believe!).  I'll admit, I get pretty sick of hearing people say that, but I usually just smile and say, "Yup, he's getting big!" and carry on with my business.  It's really not worth getting upset about and certainly not worth trying to reason with them or blowing up in their face about it (not that that's really my style anyway!).

So that's our boy!  He is cute as ever and we love him to bits!